Big band, big sound and big big personality - with a rousing call of "Wakey-Wakey" Billy Cotton introduced an inexhaustible 50 minutes of non-stop music, dancing and comedy in the essential weekend variety revue that was a stalwart of BBC programming for 12 years.
A firm Saturday night favourite for many years The Black and White Minstrel Show, a mixture of American deep South music previously popularised by internationally famous vaudeville stars such as the great Al Jolson.
Television Heaven or Television Hell? The Borgias was un-relentlessly derided and almost single-handedly spelt the end of costume drama (at least for a while) on BBC television.
Architect Mike Brady marries beautiful young Carol, who has three girls to care for. Likewise, Mike's previous wife's death has left him to raise his three boys all alone. In no time this amalgam becomes the ideal average American middle class family.
Future Hollywood actor Robert Shaw (The Sting, Jaws) made his small screen debut as ex- pirate Dan Tempest, the leader of a small band of freebooters who roamed the Caribbean Seas in the 1720's on their ship The Sultana.
A single series of seven comedies about Tom, the perennial optimist, as he wanders through life leaving chaos in his wake totally oblivious to the problems he causes for everyone.
"The word "big" doesn't really do it justice. Fifteen episodes, eight hours of television, 85 characters, 40 of them major speaking roles. No-one could accuse 'Bleak House' of being an unambitious project." - Radio Times 22nd October 2005.
David E. Kelley’s successor to 'The Practice' was actually a hybrid, combining the serious cases and workplace conflicts of that series with the outrageous behaviour, unusual issues and a sometimes-adolescent attitude toward sex that distinguished Kelley’s controversial 'Ally McBeal.'
On The Braden Beat was the most popular and best remembered TV series of the 1960s to champion the cause of the unwary purchaser against the unscrupulous seller.
Airing on the launch night of Channel 4 on 2 November 1982 Brookside changed the face of soap opera in England by tackling realistic and socially challenging storylines.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer went for the emotional jugular then finished the viewer off with an adrenaline-powered stake to the heart. It was hot, sassy and sexy. It's was also a hellmouth full of fun.
Gently thoughtful, amusing and well observed eighties situation comedy series for the BBC about a seemingly ordinary, contented, middle class suburban housewife who suddenly find herself plunged into the middle of a disorienting, emotionally tumultuous, mid-life crisis.
A group of young detectives solving cases using scientific methods.
Alan Bleasdale's hugely acclaimed series echoes the misery and despair of long-term unemployment. Set in Liverpool, these profoundly moving human dramas follow in turn the attempts of five working-class heroes to survive.
Sitcom in which sisters Sharon and Tracey are left alone to fend for themselves following each of their husband's imprisonment for armed robbery. As if that wasn't bad enough, they also have to contend with nosey next door neighbour, Dorien.
The adventures of Mr. Spoon who would travel to Button Moon in his homemade rocket-ship. All of the characters were based on kitchen utensils...
John Masefield's enchanting children's fantasy The Box of Delights, tells the story of a young boy whose chance meeting with a Punch-and-Judy man leads him to a world where almost anything is possible.
Compelling and hugely successful BBC drama series about boardroom strife and family conflict endured by three brothers.
Classic children's story shown over thirteen episodes concerning the Hensman brothers, Robin, John and Harold, who spend eight months living as outlaws in the forest of Brendon Chase.
A young girl, left penniless when her father dies, is put to work as a servant in the school that he had sent her to in order to get a good education.
Five budding young reports get involved in a series of adventures.
US action / adventure series
Based on the real-life exploits of William Bartholomew Masterson, a Dodge City lawman who preferred to use his wits instead of his fists and his cane instead of his Colt.
A band of humans who, fleeing the destruction of their twelve homeworlds by the implacable cybernetic alien race the Cylons, strike out in their rag-tag fleet protected by the last surviving Battlestar, the Galactica, in search of their mythical lost colony.
Animated sci-fi series in which a team of youngsters are tasked with a mission to save the Earth.
One of the most unusual and charming fantasy romances ever to reach prime time US screens, Beauty and the Beast was a modern day gothic romance set against the often violent, always bustling backdrop of New York City.
A 'keeping up with the Joneses sitcom starring Reg Varney and Pat Combs
A one-off special featuring a series of sketches portraying the eccentricities of the British courtesy of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
Heart warming French series about an orphan boy who befriends a dog.
This spin-off of the Susan Harris-created farce Soap sent the Tate family's insolent African-American butler Benson to the mansion of Jessica Tate's bumbling cousin, Governor James Gatling. In other words, Benson went from one dysfunctional family to another.